Ultimately, for Barry Manilow, it’s about the songs. The run of smash hits and popular classics now collected on one album for Ultimate Manilow can be heard as a testament to the abilities of an exceptionally gifted musician to bring to the world songs that connect in powerful and enduring ways. That’s the way you run up a few dozen Top 40 hits in a row. That’s the way you maintain a successful recording and performing career for over a quarter century, in a business more given to fly-by-night phenomenon. And ultimately, that’s the way you become Barry Manilow.

Recently I had the great pleasure of welcoming Barry as a guest on a new television show that I host on the Bravo network called Musicians. For the record, Barry was a perfect guest – funny, smart and just as charming as the down-to-earth persona he established early on with his self-deprecating on-stage patter. But what impresses me most about the man is his often-undervalued pure musical talent. For all his commercial success and the iconic status he’s achieved thanks to millions of worshipful fans around the world, it’s something overlooked that Manilow is a singer-songwriter-arranger-producer of rare abilities

Barry Manilow’s life has been literally full of music – all kinds of music. Manilow’s music has found a place in the lives of millions of other people it has touched … “We musicians – people who are musical – you just know it when you’re born,” Manilow told me. “I didn’t know the details of music, and I didn’t know the language, but I just always knew everything there was to know about music. I just felt it.”

“When I look back on the catalog of music, I’m very proud of it. I don’t think I sold out at all. Because even though I recorded some songs that I didn’t write, I think I put as much of myself, and as much of my talent, into these songs as I possibly could, so that I could look back at them, and be proud of all of them.”

Manilow’s subsequent career – which has included jazz, show tunes, theater and most recently a fine concept album called Here At The Mayflower – has seen him following his first passion of music wherever it would lead him as he’s kept his motor running … “I think that in the end, it’s not about what you do that counts, it’s about how you made people feel. You know, when it’s all over, I would like to think that the music that I’ve made has made people feel good.”

Take a listen to Ultimate Manilow and you’ll realize that the man doesn’t have to hope. It looks – and sounds – like he’s made it.